OCLC Prints The Last Catalog Card

It’s the end of an era certainly. OCLC has produced its last printed catalog card. We may take online catalogs for granted these days, but someone, somewhere has been using printed cards. An article in the Columbus Dispatch noted that the last set of printed cards went to Concordia College in Bronxville, NY. The peak total for cards within a year was 135 million in 1984. That’s the year personal computers by Apple and IBM started hitting the mainstream. At the end, some 1.9 billion cards had been produced. There is a forest somewhere that is sighing a breath of relief. What to do with the table and drawers that formerly held the carefully organized cards? We use ours to hold snacks for the library staff.

Disclaimer

Just in case you don't get it: The views expressed are solely those of the blog post author and should not be attributed to anyone else, meaning they do not necessarily represent the views of any organization that the post author is affiliated with or with the views of any other author who publishes on this blog.